Guatemalans Intensify Protests Against Prosecutor Porras

On Monday, the protests demanding the resignation of Attorney General Consuelo Porras reached a continuous one-week mark amid road blockades throughout the national territory.

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Authorities acknowledged that 80 roads remain blocked, 14 of which are access routes to the capital city. The majority of these blockades are concentrated along the Inter-American Highway in the northwest and are led by peasant and indigenous organizations, which called for the mobilizations in defense of democracy.

This unprecedented nationwide strike emerged after Attorney General Porras decided to confiscate boxes containing the votes from the September 29 elections and proceed with a trial against the Seed Party that sponsored President-elect Bernardo Arevalo.

As a pressure tactic, around 400 protesters have spent seven nights camping outside the central offices of the Attorney General's Office. They assert that they will continue this sit-in for as long as necessary to ensure respect for the election results.

Due to the country's paralysis, some of the main markets remained closed, schools suspended classes for the day, and some businesses decided to halt their operations.

In the past two years, the United States revoked visas for Porras and other senior officials of the Attorney General's Office, citing their undermining of justice in Guatemala.

On Monday, Porras requested that President Alejandro Giammattei deploy Guatemalan security forces to unblock the roads and remove the protesters from the Attorney General's Office headquarters.